Deuteronomy 13:1-15:23, Luke 8:40-9:6, Psalms 71:1-24, Proverbs 12:5-7
Today is the 29th day of March. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is a great to be here with you as we enter into this weekend of…I mean…if we really embrace this it’s gonna be all over the map emotionally from the depths of despair to the bright shining light of hope as we move through the passion story of Jesus. So, today, if you follow the Christian calendar is Maundy Thursday, which is simply a day of commemorating the fact that this would’ve been Jesus last supper, the last moments with His disciples where He would get down on His hands and knees and wash their feet and tell them, this is the model, this is the shape of life, to serve one another. I will talk about this a little bit more, maybe, as we get to the end of today, but let’s dive into the Scriptures, since we’re at the beginning of our time together today. We’ve been reading from the Common English Bible this week. Deuteronomy chapter 11 and 12 today.
Commentary:
Okay. Moses is reciting the statutes of the law and giving his counsel and exhortation and warning. And he’s talking about the blessings of this covenant with God, but the curses that will come from stepping outside of it. And he tells them that when they get into the land there’s a place that they should commemorate these blessings and cursing’s. And it’s interesting, in both Old and New Testaments today we visit places that…man…just like a month ago we were actually at. So, Moses talks about Mount Gerizim as the mount of blessing and Mount Ebal as the mount of cursing. And those two mountains, large hills, they’re situated just above the ancient town of Shechem, which is the modern town called Nablus. So you go on to the top of the mount of blessing, Mount Gerizim. And, so, even as I’m reading this…I’m like we were just standing on the top of that Mount.
And then in the book of Luke, Jesus sales to the other side of the Sea of Galilee and has this confrontation with a legion of demons who were cast into swine. And that place exists as well. It’s called Cursey and we were just there. So, you know, you go back on the Daily Audio Bible Facebook page and kind of scroll back and see those places. And we’ve also filmed them extensively and they’re contained in the Promise Land films that we have in the Daily Audio Bible shop as a resource. And just fascinating to know that these stories that we’re reading, they weren’t just made up out of whole cloth. They are actually rooted in a geography. And even from very, very ancient times they still exist until today, which is one of the reasons that we continue to make the effort to provide pilgrimage opportunities into the land of the Bible and root ourselves in the places where some of these stories happened. It’s fascinating to contemplate what happened in a place when you’re actually standing in the place. And I’ve mentioned that we’re planning to go back in 2019, in February 2019. I mentioned that a lot while we were there. You can check that all out at dailyaudiobible.com in the Initiatives section. Just look for Israel 2019. That pilgrimage is filling up. In fact, it’s well over half full now, but you check that out at dailyaudiobible.com.
And then I a mentioned at the very, very beginning. You know the next few days that we’re walking into are, perhaps, the most important days to commemorate that we have as believers. For the last, almost 6 weeks, we’ve been in this season known as Lent. I explained all that we began the season of Lent. And, you know, you don’t find lent in the Bible. So, it’s like not a command, you observe Lent and don’t eat candy bars or something for 40 days. That’s not really the point of it. It’s just a season that has been observed throughout almost the entirety of the Christian faith as a time to ponder, to focus our attentions on things that are out of alignment in our life, to sit with the true cost of sin. Because the true cost of sin was the life of Jesus, God in the flesh, just sitting with how profound of a love it would take for a God to condescend and become one of us, and model what life can and should look like and then offer His life to give us back our own is humbling and profound indeed. And, so, we’ve been kind of sitting with that if you’ve been observing Lent, but we come to this day, it’s called Maundy Thursday. Tomorrow, of course, is Good Friday. And Saturdays Holy Saturday and Sunday is Easter. Today is a day to just understand that this is the last day of freedom for Jesus, the last day that he will move about on his own. He shares of final meal with his friends. He crosses the Kedron Valley. Again, a place we were just at and moves into the olive groves on the side of the Mount of Olives known as Gethsemane. It’s still there. And He was arrested and taken to the quarters of Caiaphas the high priest. It’s still there. And He was abused verbally, physically. Lies were screamed at Him. He was accused of blasphemy and sentenced to die. Today commemorates those events. And, of course, tomorrow, tomorrow commemorates the day that Jesus was nailed to a cross and died. Then Saturday is a day that, we as believers, we sit with the fact that light, that life, that good news that Jesus embodied was out of the world and laying dead in a tomb. Saturday also happens to be Passover. So, we sit with all of that moving our way toward sunrise on Sunday morning where all hope is restored. So, I encourage you to just consider what each of these days represent and embrace them and enter into them and meditate upon them and invite God into that with you. Make it a rich experience, allowing you to understand what your salvation cost and the gift that it is that you cannot possibly earn, exactly what we were talking about yesterday in Moses’s teachings from Deuteronomy. Embrace these days they’re very, very important. And it’s important for us to never forget. And this is one of the themes that we see in Moses, well, throughout the Torah, but in Deuteronomy, a constant reminder of where we’ve come from, who we are, who God is, where we’re going. We can think, I’ve got this down cold, I know all this, but man do we live in it? It’s funny how quickly we forget things. And, so, we have these moments that come up on the Christian calendar to remind us, to do exactly that. And that’s what’s going on now. So, embrace these next few days. Sit with them. Allow them to sink deeply into your soul. Make them meaningful as you share them with the Holy Spirit’s guidance in your life.
Prayer:
Holy Spirit, we invite you to come into exactly that, all of these things that are commemorated over the next couple of days. We sit with them and invite you into them, drawing us close to you as we surrender ourselves and our agendas to your will in your ways, that we might walk the narrow path that leads to life, that we might have the benefits of the blessings that are commemorated by the existence of Mount Gerizim, all of these places rooted so that we won’t forget. Come Holy Spirit. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Announcements:
dailyaudiobible.com is the website. It’s home. It’s where you find out what’s going on around here.
I mentioned that will be going back to Israel in 2019. You can find that at dailyaudiobible.com in the Initiatives section.
Looking at the calendar, the 8th of April we’ll be in Washington state at Columbia Community Church in the Tri-Cities.
And then on the 12th of April, the More Gathering for women begins. And if you’ve been kind of holding out and still want to come, you can register. Just visit moregathering.com. Looking forward to that very much. And, as a community, we’re interceding in advance over all of it. So, thank you for your prayers.
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And that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.
Community Prayer and Praise:
Hi, my name is Nancy H. and I want to leave a praise report. The 19th, last week, I have a little dog, he weighs 8 pounds and his name is Moe. And my son had him out front, which is not fenced, and normally he stays in the yard but that day he heard the bus coming and he ran toward it. Well, to make a long story short, I heard my son holler at him and it wasn’t good. And I went out there and he said Moe was hit by the bus. He’s 8 pounds. And he handed me Moe and he was lifeless, not breathing, his tongue was hanging out, and his eyes were closed over. And all I could do was say, Lord, don’t let my little Moe die today, don’t let me have to bury him. Well, I put my ear to his chest and I heard a faint heartbeat. And, so, I started praying. Thank you, Lord, he’s still living not dying. Thank you, Lord, he’s going to live and not die. And I pleaded the blood of Jesus over him. And when I took him inside so I could get ready to take him to the hospital I set him down and he got up and run around. So, I praise the Lord that this Sunday is resurrection Sunday. And the Lord raised my little dog up because if you saw him you’d of swore he was dead, but he lived and he’s very active. When I took him to the hospital he got a good report. Nothing wrong with him. So, I got to bring him home. And I just wanted to praise the Lord that my little Moe, the Lord loves animals and he raised him up. Thank you. And God bless you.
Hey. What’s up everybody? It’s Miguel from Santa Rosa. Thank you for those of you that have reminded me that I am a part of this community. Monica, from Kentucky, I heard you call in and leave a message that came through on one of the community prayer lines and several of you that have left comments on my Facebook posts asking for prayers over my work. I appreciate all of you. And, yeah, I do want to call in with a prayer request. And I have a lot of different things I could ask for prayer for but there’s an overarching theme that I want to ask for prayer over…and it’s this…the Lord has been unfolding for me a calling on my life. Some of you know that I am a worship leader and the Lord has been showing me that the burden for leading worship is further than just simply holding the guitar and singing in front of a church, but more of a pastoral sense of guiding the worship of the church to His holy name. And there’s much involved in that calling and it is continuing to unfold right in front of me. So, I ask for you to pray for that. And the Lord has shown me through His word, even in a word that was read just the other day in Luke when Jesus was talking about old wineskins, new wineskins. The Lord has showed me that He is preparing me to pour new wine into me and that there are a lot of pieces of old wineskin that still need to go. So, all my prayer requests that I could leave here have to do with that, that the old wineskins have to go, that there is a new wineskin that He is preparing for me, that He is continuing to make as part of me and that once that new wineskin is ready, new wine is coming. So, pray for my calling. Pray for my wineskin. Pray for me and all that’s involved in that. So, thank you guys. miguelfromsantarosa@gmail.com, by the way, for all of those who want to reach out. Thanks. Bye.
Hey DAB family. This is Michael from Mesa, now really sure to be from West Mesa as I’m closing in on the house that we’re going to purchase and move into. Thank you for those who have been praying for me. Thank you, Victoria S., for the prayers for my son Ryan and for the move and for all the rest of those who have not called that I know are praying. Thank you so much. I’m quickly calling in for Paul from Houston before I jump on my commute on the 202 to get home. Paul, marriage, I’m praying for you. You’ll be on my list. I’ll be keeping you in my prayers. And we go through so many seasons and in life with our spouses and it’s not easy to get through all of those together. And there, a lot of pain that can happen along the way. And it’s all about the pain that we choose to go through together as a husband and wife that keeps us together, that keeps us in oneness. And when that isn’t happening we try to separate ourselves and keep our real focus on Christ and then kind of come back together afterwards and say, okay, now that we have our own act together we can do better together. So, I would just pray that you and your wife would have good solid individual time with God and knowing who you are and knowing what commitment you made to Him first and to each other second and getting through your marriage. And I hope you are blessed abundantly and greatly in your opportunities to deepen your relationship with each other. So, love you all, praying for you all. Annette it’s good to hear your voice. Blind Tony good to hear your poems as always. Love you all. Take care. Bye-bye.
Hi guys this is jubilant perseverance, usually from Indonesia; however, today I’m calling you from Malaysia. I am calling after a very hectic spring break week that ended with losing my wallet in a bus terminal here in __ and having to find some friends of friends to stay with as I wait to get my passport and work visa replaced. It’s been a very…it’s a very long story…it’s been a stressful situation but I’m at peace. __ peace __ all understanding, guarding my heart and mind in Jesus Christ. Thanks to, I think, just a lot of just the Spirit’s presence and I think a lot of preparation and God has put me through before this happened that’s helped to make it less of a fearful kind of moment, but yeah, it’s stressful still. And the enemy just keeps piling on more and more. I don’t know what’s going on, but I was just telling friends on Facebook after showing them at pic up a mosquito bite that caused a really swollen knot to appear on my head yesterday. I was telling them the enemy is really coming at me hard. So, God must have something amazing on the horizon. So, I’m looking forward to a reporting great news soon.
Hello __ . It’s Lisa the Encourager. I just wanted to say I __ with the community I heard about this week. And, so, I’m just reaching out to those that are really feeling in those deep dark pits and they’re really struggling. And I just want to reach out to you and tell you that I love you right now. I love you and I’m sorry for what you’re going through and am praying for you because I want you to know and I want you to think about this, that the God that made the galaxy, the galaxy guys, He’s the God of the galaxy. The things that you’re going through on this earth, it’s not about that, it’s about your relationship with Him. So, just reach out, like I said before, remember this, He said this, are my arms not long enough to reach you? He is there for you. Please, please just seek Him out no matter what you’re going through. If you’re going through a divorce, your wife left you, you have a drug addiction, your children have a problem, He is your God, He loves you he hears you. Do not forget that. So, focus on that instead of the depression and the anxiety and the monstrous things that you’re going through on this earth and focus on your eternity and your relationship with Jesus and I promise you it will help you. And with that, I am praying for Matt tonight who found out that his wife had an eight-year affair and she’s drinking a lot and she’s letting his business go. And, so, I’m praying for Matt…